Okay, so the last time I got a relaxer was in early september. At that point, I had braids for 3 months, and I wish I had started transitioning then, but I had no idea what to do with my hair. I made the decision to transition about a month ago, but I have no idea how to maintain my hair. I know about moisturizing my hair with a shea butter/olive oil mix, but how to I keep my hair moisturized and...looking nice?

I've been getting relaxers since I was 5, and I've never liked my hair. I want to go natural because when I noticed that when I curled my hair with spiral curlers (my hair cannot take heat. at all) I really liked the way it looked. But now I'm having a hard time knowing what to do with my hair other than comb it back into a pony tail.

Oh yeah, that would dry my hair out like crazy. Shea butter and olive oil are not moisturizers, they are sealers to seal in your moisturizer. However, you are not using anything to moisturize your hair. If I did this, I would actually seal out moisture, which would lead to extremely dry, brittle, breaking hair. Keeping in mind that everyone's hair responds differently and has different needs, I layer my products on damp-to-slightly wet hair to maintain moisture and reapply as needed on about the 2nd or 3rd day after washing or cowashing. I apply a spray leave-in, then a creamy leave-in, then moisturizer, then seal with oil. The spray leave-in I use the most, the other I apply sparingly. I plan to modify the amounts as my new hair grows, but this method is working great.

I also cowash midweek and wash and deep condition on the weekend. Cowashing is "washing" the hair with conditioner only. I use Trader Joe's TTT or Nature's Gate Biotin conditioners to cowash.

Lavendar is right. Olive oil and shea butter are not moisturizers, they are sealers (so you want to layer them on top of a moisturizer to seal in the moisture).

Styling can seem limited when you are transitioning, but there are a number of options for heat-free styling: twistouts, bantu knotouts, braidouts, and roller sets are a few. Try searching for instructions on this site or look for vids on youtube to help guide you.

The ladies above have offered good advice. I would get a good, rich conditioner, a good deep conditioner, and a leave-in. Also, aloe vera gel can be helpful for moisturizing and balabcing pH of the hair.

As someone explained, cowashing is washing the hair with conditioner. You should clarify your hair before starting a cowash regimen and you may periodically need to clarify the hair after you start cowashing. Some inexpensive condiotioners you can use are Suave Naturals, VO5, & Tresemme Naturals.

A nice, inexpensive DC is Lustrasilk Mango & Shea butter Cholesterol.

You can add aloe vera gel to the shea butter mix to improve results too. HTH

Great advice from everyone. I would like to add that you use a WATER based moisturizer. I like to mix water and conditioner into a spray bottle and spritz my hair with that when I'm doing braid, twists, or Bantu knot outs. If I'm trying to maintain a straight style (I flat iron 1-2 times a month) I moisturize with a creamy leave-in conditioner and THEN go over that with a light dose of olive oil or jojoba oil.